Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard and SiCKO
July 3rd, 2007
Should I Stay? Should I Go?
Live Free or Die Hard and SiCKO Plus, Transformers in brief
By Fred Richardson
So there are plenty of Live Free Die Hard/SiCKO ironic title combinations I could play around with here, but I won’t bother. Just come up with your own.
First up is Michael Moore’s latest bit of Docu-ganda SiCKO. The problem with Moore’s work is that your political leanings greatly effect your viewing. So in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve got to get my own viewpoint out in the open here.
I’m an independent. I’m 100% socially liberal and support gay rights, nearly absolute freedom of speech, am pro-choice and love kittens. I’m fairly conservative economically, but support limited use of public funding for social issues and the arts. My votes for the Prez have been as follows- G. Bush I, Clinton, Mickey Mouse, Nader, Kerry. I don’t think the government should solve all of society’s ills, but I also thing that it can and SHOULD try to help.
I’ve also never had health insurance. EVER.
The movie does a great job of reporting about the extremely messed up system of health care in the U.S. and shows how nifty it is to live countries like Canada, France, and the UK where everyone gets free health care. Much like Moore’s previous movies, he has a keen eye for showing us just how screwed up a thing here can be by letting us see just how alien other countries’ residents find our system. It’s important to note that the U.S. is the last western civilization without a form of national public health care. SiCKO most reminds me of Moore’s own Bowling for Columbine, in which he explores why things are the way they are here while showing how somewhere similar (again Canada) has fewer problems in the same area. Is it just that America is screwed up in some fundamental way? He pulls on our heartstrings again and again by showing real people chewed up in the medical-insurance complex. But then Moore does something stupid.
After making many valid points and showing much flair for reporting on both the benefits of elsewhere and the absurdities of here, he tries to get into the fantastic. He helps get (sets up/stages?) medical treatment for some of the sad stories earlier in the film by going to Cuba. There are scenes in this segment that are cringe-worthy and have to make his detractors jump up in the theater and yell “SEE!!! HE’S A COMMIE!!!!! HE HATES FREEDOM!!!!” It almost as bad as his attack on an obviously not all there Chuck Heston in Columbine. Then there’s his mentioning of his anonymous donation to one of his biggest detractors. I gotta talk to him for a sec here- Mike? Ummm, look guy, it’s tooting your own horn that is making it hard to hear your real message. You claim to have debated it’s inclusion? You picked the wrong side.
All that aside, SiCKO is powerful film making that should be seen by everyone (hopefully we’ll see it in Colatown real soon) and debated. One should research Moore’s facts on one’s own and not just take his word, but there’s enough truth here to make you sad, scared, and most importantly, very very angry.
Next comes John McClane’s latest crisis in Live Free or Die Hard.
It sucked.
Willis is good, but plays McClane a bit too mean for my tastes. Except for one scene he just barrels through crowds of bystanders with total disregard for public safety.
Justin Long’s character name escapes me. As it did while in the movie itself. I kept thingking “Hey! The Mac guy can act! Good for him!” I just wish the genius comedy stylings of John Hodgman (PC) had been here too.
There’s also a bad-ass girl baddie who is fun but tissue-thin as a character. Timothy Olyphant’s villain Gabriel is forgettable but well played. Kevin Smith’s cameo is fun too, but again more for who the actor is than anything tangible. Lucy Genero-cum-McClane isn’t badly played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, she’s just a badly written character.
As a matter of fact that’s one of the huge problems. The thing is just badly written. The science is all crap. The action is all contrivance with all novelty ruined by overly revelatory trailers. There’s a scene late in the film to demonstrate just how dastardly our bad guy is that made me burst into laughter at it’s obviousness and ineptitude.
Director Len Wiseman directed two of my favorite guilty pleasures, the Underworld films. The first one is a bit of fantasy that just misses being great by about 20% and it’s sequel (subtitled Evolution) is only 10% off. I don’t know what happened this time, but that’s strike one.
I say stay away from Die Hard 4 and go see Knocked Up, still my favorite film this year or stay home for either Apocalypto or Letters from Iwo Jima on DVD or PPV, I just got around to them this week and recommend both with the warning of very realistic violence for those with a distaste for that sort of thing.
Quick first impression of Transformers…
What a Michael Bay movie should be at it’s best. Brainless, loud, hyper-kinetic, and lots of freakin’ fun.
So long as you don’t expect a 100 percent faithful rendering of the original cartoonvertisement or some sort of real world logical tale, I think you’ll be quite pleased. The summer blockbuster it reminds me most of is Independence Day. Like that 1996 romp, the Transformers thing can’t really stand up to logic if you try really hard to be critical, but if you just let go, all will be well.
Sure, I’m often very critical of things, but I try to take the spirit of the film in mind. Yes, I panned Die Hard 4 for it’s bad writing, and lack of believability, but the series is set in the semi-real world, whereas Transformers is fairly internally consistent and obviously high-concept sci-fantasy and NEVER tries to be realistic for even a minute.
A quick warning- I and some pals saw an early showing at Columbiana Grande and had more friends watching in a second auditorium for the same showing time. We all experienced a stoppage of the film, complete with the lights coming half-up. It took a little while to fix (at least a full minute, perhaps longer) and we had no explanation nor apology from the staff. It’s usually one of my favorite venues, but considering the $8.50 per person and the commercials, I was quite disappointed and will be phoning theater management to confirm that the problem was one time and fixed. Check the CCP website for an update.
In the meantime, just leave your brain at the door and enjoy.
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July 5th, 2007 at 06:22 PM
Subject: The Shot Heard Around the World
When we are all dead what country’s citizenship did it matter that we belonged to ? According to the movie ‘SICKO” that would be any country that takes good medical care of its living citizens, but that would not be here in the USA. It could be any socialized medical country like: The Vatican, China, Palestine, Germany, Israel, Ireland, England, Cuba, Russia, Canada, Mexico, France, etc. etc.. The biggest point of Michael Moore’s movie is that if you socialize only one thing around the world and here in the USA, just one thing, it should be the public health system. The only thing different I would have changed in the Sicko movie was the ending where instead of Michael Moore taking his laundry up the Capitol steps to see if our government will start paying government employees to do his laundry like they do in France, well, maybe that was a pretty good ending. But another good ending may have been seeing Americans give back the USA to the Indians because our health care system leaves most Americans as bad off as the day the pilgrims first arrived and then show Americans returning back to their respectful socialized medical countries where they’ll get top notch medical treatment instead of the 1600s type still going on today.
Then if you want a real surprise watching Sicko notice Michael Moore donates $12,000.00 dollars to this guy who has the largest Anti-Michael Moore website to Moore movies going on because this same guy’s wife has now taken ill and cannot afford to be a giant Michael Moore hater anymore plus pay for his wife’s new medical bills; so Moore donates anonymously the money to keep his biggest critic on the web going…class act right? That’s the way you do it.
How about the Bureaucrat Doctor that works for Corporate cronies who is confronted at congressional hearings because he has been caught as the big cheese top Doctor rubber stamping denials on your and my health care treatment forms without ever personally reviewing them for treatment approval. This country is totally out of health care control and Moore’s movie focuses on great true stories like it from beginning to present. It’s too late for me with my diabetes and complications and my ballooning co-payments, but there still may be time left for you to change a broken health care system before you need it and find that it isn’t there. Good Luck.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:36 PM
First off, I don’t really give a shit where you are coming from. I don’t care how you voted and I especially don’t give a shit if you voted for George Sr… Next time just talk about the movies.
You are out of touch and out of your mind.
There is nothing in Sicko that is “cringe-worthy.” It is totally bi-partisan.
What is cringe-worthy is that fact 9-11 heroes couldn’t get treatment in the United States of America.
As far as Michael mentioning that his number one enemy was unable to continue a web site due to his wife not having health insurance, that is just poetic justice.
Moore sending them a check for $12,000 anonymously for her operation should be applauded and not criticized.
This is the type of run of the mill review I would expect to read in the media that let the unwarranted war in Iraq occur.
How about reporting the truth? This review should be appearing on Fox News. When did Columbia City Paper sell out to pharmaceutical companies and decide to perpetuate lies on the American public?
July 11th, 2007 at 04:42 AM
Just talk about the movies, eh?
Is that what you’re doing by calling me out of my mind? Why is it that if I give a movie positive review while mentioning what I see as flaws I become the enemy here? Is there no room for differing opinions in your and/or Moore’s world? Sounds a whole hell of a lot like the current administration to me.
Like the previous comment poster, you seem to think that I hated the movie and disagree with Moore’[s message because I didn’t just say “It’s great! I agree with everything 110%!” and that you needed to review it better than I did to combat this right-wing propaganda machine called the Columbia City Paper.
And since when did someone’s opinion about a movie become a matter of fact -v- fiction?
I KNOW it’s FACT that the review I wrote is MY* opinion. *I have problems with some of Moore’s grandstanding in the last bit of the movie. You disagree? Fine, but accusing the Columbia City Paper of selling out to Big Pharma is patently ludicrous.
Oh, and did you miss the part where I said it should be seen by everyone?
Is it that I said debated that pissed you off so much?
Forget using your fucking brain and questioning something, eh? Cause if you do you must be the enemy. I suppose you want us all to just drink the kool-aid and cyanide consequences be damned.
I say bullshit.
I say that anything you cannot question isn’t worth believing in.
But again, that’s MY OPINION, innit?
Fred Richardson